The University of New Mexico School of Medicine lists two individual interviews with different admissions committee members, conducted online through Zoom. Each can last 30 minutes to an hour, and the school asks applicants to reserve the whole day.

What the official interview page says

UNM's interview guidance says interviews are by invitation. Interviewers don't have access to your MCAT scores, academic history, or GPA before the interview.

The discussion focuses on non-academic evidence such as clinical and research experiences, volunteering, letters, and your personal statement.

The school describes assessing motivation for medicine, maturity, problem-solving, how you relate to people, and how you organize your ideas. It also requests a recent headshot from invited applicants for office use, separate from committee application review.

Follow your invitation for the schedule, time zone, joining instructions, and any required submissions.

Explain experiences without relying on scores

Review your application and choose two experiences you can discuss in detail. One might concern working with people; another might concern a problem you tried to understand.

They don't need to be dramatic.

For each, write down what happened, your role, what you did, and what you learned.

What you could not see

Then add a limitation. Were you observing rather than making decisions?

Did you see only one part of someone's experience? Could another explanation fit what you observed?

Don't volunteer other people's identifying details. You can explain a meaningful encounter without naming a patient, giving a rare combination of personal facts, or presenting yourself as their clinician.

A reflection exercise before your mock

This fictional exercise is original practice material, not a reported UNM interview question.

During a volunteer shift, an attendee appears frustrated and stops participating. You assume they don't want help, but later learn the instructions were difficult for them to follow.

Explain what you would change about your approach.

Answer component	What to make clear
Initial assumption	What you inferred, and what you hadn't checked.
A respectful next step	How you'd ask what the person needs without speaking for them.
Your role	What you could do and when you'd involve a supervisor.
Learning	How you'd check understanding earlier next time.

A weak answer jumps to “I'd educate them.” A more useful answer first recognizes that you don't know the reason for their frustration.

Ask, listen, and adapt within your responsibilities. Don't infer a person's needs from their ethnicity, language, or community alone.

Connect to New Mexico without guessing

UNM's mission and values emphasize New Mexicans' health, compassionate care, research, and social responsibility. Pick a connection you can explain through your experience, rather than reciting a list of supposed interview themes.

Using sources and programs

If you discuss a community-health issue, distinguish a current source from your own interpretation. Check the date and the population behind a statistic.

You can also discuss an access barrier without pretending to know its statewide prevalence. Avoid naming a UNM program unless you've verified its current purpose and your potential role.

Practice questions for the UNM interviews (written by us)

These are our questions, not reported UNM prompts. They follow the qualities UNM says it looks for.

Why UNM, and how do you see yourself contributing to the health care needs of New Mexico?Practice this question now
Your interviewer hasn't seen your grades or MCAT. Which experience on your application best shows who you are, and why?Practice this question now
What first made you consider medicine, and what have you done since to test that decision?Practice this question now
Tell me about a time you showed maturity in a situation where it would have been easier not to.Practice this question now
Describe a problem you tried to understand before you tried to fix it. What did you find out?Practice this question now
Tell me about someone you found hard to connect with. What did you do to build a working relationship?Practice this question now
A patient who lives two hours from Albuquerque keeps missing follow-up visits. How would you find out why, and what could you do?Practice this question now
What did your clinical or volunteer work show you about access to care in a rural or underserved community?Practice this question now
How would you explain a complicated topic from your research or coursework to someone with no background in it?Practice this question now
What would you add to the learning environment at UNM that your classmates might not?Practice this question now

A two-conversation practice session

Ask a partner to run two separate 12-minute conversations. In the first, discuss motivation and one application experience.

In the second, discuss a different experience and the fictional reflection exercise above. Allow follow-up questions in both.

Review

Finish with six minutes of review, for a 30-minute practice session. Those 12-minute blocks are a suggested drill; the school's actual interviews can each last 30 to 60 minutes.

Check whether you answered the question, made your role clear, and changed your answer when new information appeared.

Prepare the Zoom setup

Test your camera, microphone, connection, and display name. Confirm the interview time zone, the joining instructions, and any contact method provided for technical trouble.

Clear enough time for the whole day, even though your individual conversations are shorter.

Practice spoken interview answers with Confetto and review feedback. Use the feedback to identify one answer to revise, then rehearse it again with a follow-up question instead of memorizing a script.

Also applying to the University of Colorado School of Medicine? See our interview guide for that school.

Also applying to the University of Utah? See our guide to the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine interview.

Preparing for the University of New Mexico School of Medicine interview

Key facts (2026-27)

Dates for 2026-27